Tarot Reviews

I thought I would give it an attempt to review this deck of oracle cards called Gods and Titans. It is made by Stacey Demarco, who also has made a similar deck called Goddesses and Sirens, which I might review later on. I have the feeling that these two decks of oracle cards would work better together. Beyond Words Publishing is the publisher and the deck is illustrated by Jimmy Manton.

First of all, I have to say that I am not all that familiar with oracle cards. This is actually my first deck of oracle cards, and I don’t intend to use them for divination. I think regular tarot cards are more than sufficient for that use. I am not saying that it is not possible to do so, I definitely think it is possible, but it is just not my cup of tea. For me it makes more sense to draw a single oracle card and contemplate or meditate over it. That is what I got them for.

I have actually had some aversion to oracle cards. Mainly because many of them have too much of a feminine vibe. Gods and Titans is being marketed as a masculine oracle deck and it definitely seems like they have succeeded in making a deck that isn’t too soft around the edges. It is even mentioned in the booklet of the deck that this deck is meant to bring back “the Masculine Divine” to our modern spirituality. Good. It feels like a breath of fresh air. And that is why I felt that I could buy them and actually put them into use. As a male, it can be difficult to identify with regular oracle decks. I am curious about the Goddesses and Sirens deck now. From the box set I don’t have the impression that it is very feminine deck either, despite its title, but I will have a proper look at it in another review.

I don’t have any particular concerns about the card stock. I see that some people have complained, but there are no concerns here. Treat the cards with respect and there should be no problems. The cards are rather large compared to regular tarot cards and as I am not someone with extremely big hands, it feels a bit clunky to shuffle them, but that’s okay. The positives for having large images make up for that as that is better when you just want to focus on a few cards like I intend to do anyway.

The images of the Gods and Titans are generally nice, but there is a lot of yellow, red and orange colours here. It definitely feels masculine, but maybe slightly over the top. For example I don’t find it necessary with the orange/yellow background for the Dionysus card. He isn’t a war god. It’s not necessary to go full on He-Man mode to make it masculine. It is not an issue though, merely a small observation from my part.

A nice touch is the booklet which includes a small introduction to the different Gods and Titans, but also a small invocation or prayer to each of the cards. Some are even with small ritual suggestions. That is not something for me to review though. How you look at that depends on your magical background, what tradition you work in etc. As I understood it from the booklet Stacey Demarco is a practitioner of witchcraft herself, so maybe it gives a little bit of flavor of that, which I found interesting.

My main issue with the deck is the amount of different pantheons it takes its Gods and Titans from. Here you find a mix of a wide range of deities from western, eastern and even Mayan/Aztec culture. I find that rather overwhelming and I doubt that most people will have a relationship to all of these pantheons. I think most people, like me, will have one, two or maybe three favorite pantheons. There are Gods in here that I never even heard about before I opened the box. So it is very difficult for me to have an opinion about those Gods and what they are supposed to represent. Maybe it would have made more sense to include fewer pantheons, but have both male and female gods and goddesses included in the same deck and instead organize the decks by different pantheons. I might actually do that and add the two decks together and remove the cards I don’t feel any connection to. There is a very big chance that there are some cards in here that I will rarely work with, or even work with at all.

It doesn’t mean that Gods and Titans is a bad oracle deck though. It is definitely one of the few out there on the market today that probably will feel acceptable for men. And if you are looking for a decent set of oracle cards it might be worth picking up these. I think even women would appreciate that the deck feels rather differently than the rest of the oracle decks on the market today and it could be relevant for them if they are looking for something else than the ordinary “only positive vibes” oracle cards.

-Thus spake the Night Spirit

Gods and Titans by Stacey Demarco – oops, looks like someone else made it into the picture as well.

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I pulled this book out of my collection of books. Sometimes you come across some strange and interesting titles and “Tarot & Magic” by Donald Michael Kraig is one of those curious titles. Often books on tarot are very focused on methods for tarot reading. This book however attempts to look at different ways to use the tarot deck.

First a few words about the author. Donald Michael Kraig was a tarot master and practicing occultist. He was the author of the popular “Modern Magick – Twelve Lessons in the High Magickal Arts” which is a really good introduction to Golden Dawn-style classical magick. In that book he also ties together tarot practice and the kabbalah and gives some cool exercises you can do with tarot to try and gain a deeper understanding of the cards.

That is a really good book, which comes highly recommended. When I say highly recommended, it means that it is a good introduction. Not that I necessarily agree with everything that is written there, but it is a good starting point of doing your own studies and could help you to spark that interest. Plus that if you have an interest in tarot it will be adressed there. Many books on the occult choose to ignore the tarot completely.

As that book is not exclusively about the tarot, he also wrote the book “Tarot & Magic” which is an attempt to put the tarot into a magickal context. My version is the first edition, second printing from 2003. Originally I think it was released back in 2002.

What I like about this book is that it is very different from most other books about the tarot. It does not focus on card meanings or tarot reading at all. This one is purely about tarot and how it more specifically relates to magical practice. It says that it is intended for those who already have some experience with the tarot and magic, but honestly, it is not all that complicated. Maybe it would be good to have a general idea about the tarot, but it is not so complex that any in-depth knowledge is required. A basic understanding of the cards should be more than sufficient and anything more than that can be developed through studying.

In total there are nine chapters covering nine very different topics. Unfortunately, that is also the issue I am having with this book. It is only 175 pages long and some chapters are more interesting than others. Those chapters that are interesting could have been more in-depth and when you read it, you will only feel that you have scratched the surface. I suspect that this was also the author’s own intention as there is a chapter dedicated to “Tarot and Magic – continual evolution” which encourage people to experiment on their own and develop their own methods.

And when I say that some chapters are more interesting than others, I also find that to be one of the problems with this book. There are a whole lot of very different ideas in here and you will not like them all. Normally, I would say, that is not an issue when reading a book as it usually stays on one topic. Tarot & Magic doesn’t. If you are interested in Ceremonial Magic, you are not interested in reading about Wiccan tarot spells. And a Wiccan is probably not interested in reading about kabbalistic pathworking or ceremonial magic spells. The book would probably benefit from a little bit more focus and go a little bit more in-depth on certain topics instead of trying to appeal to practioners of every kind.

The result is that I find 3 chapters really interesting, a couple chapters are okay and the rest are largely irrelevant. Chapter 4 called “Dancing the Tarot” was my anti-climax and nearly made me put the book down, but I am glad I didn’t. The book is only 175 pages long to begin with and with so much content that will not be relevant to you, there is not all that much you will find to be of any substance.

There’s also a bibliography for further reading, which is great, but it is not sorted after the chapters, so it can be a little bit difficult to understand which books are relevant for the topics you are interested in.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a bad book. After having read it I sit back with a feeling of wanting more. It will spark your curiosity, it will drive you to have a go at it. And I suspect that was also the main goal of the author writing the book. In the closing comments of the book he even writes “If you are a Tarot reader now, learn to use the Tarot for magic and share your techniques with your clients. Also share them with other Tarot readers. Start websites and magazines with ideas for doing Tarot magic. If they are modifications or additions to what I have presented here, fine. If they are new and different concepts, even better.”

My closing comment is that it is an affordable book with some interesting ideas. It is nowhere near as good as his book “Modern Magick”, but if you take it for what it is, and don’t expect it to give you a full intoduction into tarot magic, and can accept that it will only will present you with some ideas, that you will need to work on and develop yourself, then this can be a good book to pick up at an affordable price. I suspect that after “Modern Magick” a lot of people would have expected something different, but Tarot & Magic isn’t a new “Modern Magick” on the subject of tarot magic. It is still a decent book on the subject though.

-Thus spake the Night Spirit

First Edition, second printing 2003 paperback edition

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I am not sure how many reviews I will be doing on this blog. I guess it depends a little on whether I get any feedback from it and people seem interested in them. I suppose there are plenty of people doing reviews already. I only recently got this deck and as it was released in April 2018, I thought why not.

The first thing I want to say about this deck is that it is created by an artist called Renata Lechner and that it is the second deck in a planned trilogy of tarot decks. The first one was released in 2015 and is called the Thelema Tarot (it has nothing to do with Aleister Crowley’s religion. It’s similar in name only. It doesn’t even follow Crowley’s swaps for the Thoth deck). The Arcanum was recently released in 2018 and a third deck called the “Millennium Thot Tarot” is due to be released either in 2019 or 2020. It is therefore difficult not to compare them to each other and talk a little bit about both decks released thus far. The review is meant for the Arcanum Tarot, but most of what I say here will be applicable for the Thelema Tarot as well.

I don’t know anything about Renata Lechner or any of her ideas around the tarot, so this review will be based on how I experience the deck and my own tarot knowledge.

Arcanum Tarot, as the Thelema Tarot, comes with a neat little box that protect the cards. It is definitely a nice upgrade from most other decks which only get a simple box. This box offers some additional protection for the cards and it looks quite nice too. It also comes with a small color-printed booklet with brief meanings of the card meanings written by Jaymi Elford. You don’t get this deck for the booklet though. I don’t find it descriptive enough to be of any particular interest, but could be of use if you need to be guided to what you see on the images.

Artwork:

The artwork was what brought the Thelema tarot to my attention and the Arcanum tarot continues the trilogy in a similar style. Visually they look quite similar to each other. Both are borderless with the title of the card neatly situated at the bottom of the card. and have rich colorful style with almost photo realistic images. The cardback has a nice design, but I don’t think it is meant to symbolize anything in particular. I think it is just a fantasy design that looks quite cool. At least, it doesn’t tell me anything.

I think the artwork is the main strength of this deck. Most of the images are really beautiful with a nice colorful and glossy print.And I think I prefer the artwork in the Thelema deck slightly over this one. The aesthetics of both the decks give me a slight feminine vibe, which I think is the case with a lot of visually pleasing tarot decks.

For some of the cards that might even be an issue. They can perhaps be a little too beautiful when they are supposed to communicate a little bit more of their raw energy, but generally it is not too much of a problem.

Arcanum Tarot at the top and Thelema Tarot at the bottom. The three first cards hint at a future blog post and Temperance I just added, because it’s my favorite tarot card from any deck.

Symbolism:

Neither the Thelema Tarot or Arcanum Tarot have the esoteric symbols added on to them. There is space to add them yourself if you want, but I am not a fan of adding my own ugly handwriting to my cards.

It seems to be based on the traditional Rider-Waite Smith symbolism and the cards have the same names and numberings as in that deck.

The images here are a little different from the Rider-Waite Smith deck and that makes it a little bit more difficult at times to capture the essence of the cards. Subtle differences can sometimes make a significant impact on how the cards are being perceived. Some cards are also quite far from the traditional images

If you are very familiar with the Rider-Waite Smith you will recognize them though, but it also means that you probably need that Rider-Waite Smith knowledge in place already to use this deck properly.

Conclusion

If you already have the Thelema tarot, and you like that one. I would consider getting this deck too. If you don’t already own the Thelema tarot, I would probably consider getting that one first. Not only is it the first deck in the trilogy, but I also think its imagery is a little bit better.

The beautiful artwork is the main reason to get any of those two decks. They’re both not great for symbolism, but it works quite ok if you already are familiar with Rider-Waite Smtih.

Big plus for the nice box that comes with it. Definitely something more publishers should be doing and it saves you from buying extra tarot pouches.

The card quality is also good and I am not afraid to use these cards (just don’t put them under your pillow while sleeping).

Another idea, that I guess some tarot purists will hate, would be to take the favorite cards from each deck of the trilogy and put them together to your own super-deck with the cards that resonate the most with you. They are all the same size, so it would work.

Overall I am glad to have both Thelema Tarot and Arcanum Tarot in my collection. As the decks are both visually pleasing I find that they are great for tarot contemplation sessions for those cards that I think capture their essence in a great way.